Within the prior art, it is known to provide telecommunication service by a distributed telecommunication system using port networks (also referred to as media connectivity gateways) that are distributed over a geographical area with the port networks communicating media information via either the Internet or another type of wide area network. Control for the distributed port networks is provided by a gatekeeper also referred to as a switching processing element (SPE). For reliability, it is known to provide duplicated computers to perform the functions of the SPE. One computer is considered the active computer and the other computer is considered the standby computer which is capable of assuming control should the active computer fail. Although the use of duplicating computers to perform the SPE function does increase reliability, it does not solve certain failure problems. For example, the site where the SPE is located may experience an extreme disaster so that the SPE is eliminated as a functioning unit. In addition, since control is transmitted over the Internet, it is possible due to network fragmentation that a SPE may not be able to maintain control over one or more distributed port networks.